


glow, changeless forever

by mysticaltorque



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen, Irony, Kidfic, ThoscheiLockdown2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:01:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23319526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mysticaltorque/pseuds/mysticaltorque
Summary: The Doctor kills some time before her last shift at the division, and talks to a Time Tot waiting to look into the Vortex.
Relationships: The Doctor & The Master (Doctor Who)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 16
Collections: Thoschei Lockdown The First 2020





	glow, changeless forever

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Adeline_Hatter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adeline_Hatter/gifts).



> this is ooc mainly because it's ruth!doctor, who i imagine has a very different perspective on Gallifreyan society and her role in it. For the prompt 'First Kiss'. Please ignore the complete lack of romance, Ruth!doctor being sad grabbed me and didn't let go.

The Doctor walks about aimlessly, pretending that this stop was only another of many stops, trying to pretend that the rest of her life did not stretch out aimlessly before her. She failed, with a vaguely banana-like aftertaste. Odd. Psychic blowback wasn’t usually tat bad for her, her slightly differing biology giving her a few quirks when it came to Gallifreyan telepathy- a subject so wrapped up in Shobogan-specific biometaphysical quirks that she’d given up on learning it entirely, relying instead on vague instinct.

The Division Headquarters loom behind her, reminding her of her impending resignation.  _ What was she even supposed to do with the rest of her life?  _ Aside from her mother, there had been nothing that asked her what she’d wanted from life- shuffled into the Division as soon as her regenerations became too obvious, again. There had to be something more, but for her work in the Division the Doctor had travelled across all of time and space. Travelling again seemed… lesser, somehow, despite vaguely knowing with the cloudiness of a temporal paradox at some point she would travel again. Perhaps she really couldn’t do without the structure of the Division, no matter how determined she was to find a path away from the bureaucracy and superiority of Gallifreyan black ops.

When she comes back to herself, she is near an area she had never had a need to come to before. The tempering ground before the Academy. The Doctor and received most of her education outside of the Academy, and any refresher courses needed were either shoved cold into her hippocampus by an apathetic Division flunky or learnt on the fly as she tried to not break a newly discovered Law Of Time- _they even had capital letters all fancy now!_

The children-  _ no, what were the Shobogans eligible to be elite Time Lords called- Tiny Times? Tick Tots? Time Tots? Let's go with Time Tots, makes them sound like cuddly little potato bites instead of soon to be traumatised children-  _ the Time Tots were waiting around in cute little groups that everyone pretended weren’t accorded due to their house’s social class, like little colonies of mold in their little petri dishes, just waiting to be unleashed. The Doctor slowed outside a higher ranking room, where most of the Time Tots had been individually chivvied off. There was a small Time Tot inside, dressed in Academy robes with little accents that the gentry liked to embroider to show off. The Doctor had heard from someone in the Division that the patterns were meant to help to focus the mind so it could comprehend the Vortex. When the mechanic said it to the Doctor, she had laughed uproariously at the idea that anything could prepare little innocents for the Vortex, alienating the mechanic who was so proud of their gentrified origins and the ‘honor brought to the house’. Looking at the tiny, hunched over Tot who was following the upraised designs with their fingers, the Doctor felt that faraway laughter sour. She stepped into the room, closing the door behind her and pretending not to notice the Tot snapping to attention at the sight of an adult in full Time Lord regalia, even as she crouched down to be nearer the Tot’s height.

“Your room is empty and near where I need to wait for an appointment. I’m not here for you.” Ruth informed the wall a handspan above the Tot’s head. She could never remember what stage children enjoyed eye contact, but she imagined psychic bleedover was the last thing the Tot would want minutes before the Vortex. There was shifting of cloth and mind, as the Tot drew up the courage to speak, something it obviously wanted to do. The Doctor immediately searched her mind and thousands of thoughts for an appropriate conversation for a non-Division operative that could still comprehend at a Time Lord level and came up disgustingly blank. Empathy it was, then.

“It will be hard, the Perceiving,” she informs the top of the Tot’s head “Harder than anything you’ve ever done, and harder still to deal with. But the outcome is worth it. To know time and space is worth it.” There is a tremble, and the Tot looks up, a handspan away from eye contact-  _ clever child- _

“Have you gone to every star?” the Tot asks.

“No. I am towards the end of my regenerations,” the Doctor lies, “but I have not been to every star.” The Tot’s fists clench, and unclench, their projections murky and cloudy, before sharpening into pinpoint resolve just as the Doctor feels the miasma of a Shobogan-born Time Lord approaching. She feels dry lips touch her forehead before she blinks in shock at the Tot.

“For luck,” the Tot says, feeling calmer, “and to promise I’ll see all the stars you didn’t.” The door swings open.

“Koschei Oakdown? This way, and open your mind.” says the Shobogan, blocking the Doctor’s view of the Tot as they went out, before performing the mockery of an honorary gesture, murmuring “By your leave, honoured grandparent.”

The Doctor nods in acknowledgement, then settles into a military posture, feeling Koschei be brought to the Vortex in a twisted mirror of how she came to be taken to Gallifrey. There is nothing left to do now but count the dozens of breaths until her last shift in the Division. She’ll think about the Academy after that.


End file.
